Saturday

As the annual windswell lizard island trip loomed I was still in doubt as to whether I would attend or not.  The previous year I had been aboard as part crew, part punter, but alas this year I knew I wouldn’t have the funds to do the same. 

JN team rider and my house mate Kyle had already secured his position as boat bitch/ deckie and put in a strong case for me to go as a deckie and of course bang out some pictures. In classic Bretto fashion I was informed of this at approximately 3 pm the day before we left. This may not sound so bad, but when you are going to be isolated on a ship for the better part of a week it’s a struggle to figure out what to pack to just cover the basics, let alone enough kiting gear for conditions that could range from a glass out to a solid 40kts. Not to mention cameras, lens, flash cards, waterproof housings, pelican cases, batteries, chargers, hard drives and VHF radios so I could fulfil my roll as photographer.

That arvo once we’d started loading up the boat, a few familiar faces and accents start to appear dockside, without having to turn around, the phrase ‘’ello big guns’ signalled Hayden and the lads had arrived and it was time to start making space for the copious  amount of beer that would needed to be stored. 30 something cartons of Coronas later, our skipper Pete didn’t look too pleased with the amount of glass we were about to freight into the Great Barrier Reef Marin Park. This started an on-going issue of where to store the empties. After loading up the last of the supplies and a few final checks it was off to the pub to catch up and bullshit to the newcomers about what lay in store on the days ahead.

Sunday

After the last of the paying passengers rolled in on Sunday morning and a few final last minute dramas unfolded (like where can you get miniDV tapes in Port Douglas at 7am on a Sunday morning) we waved good bye to Tash and Fabs, who were still fuming at not being able to come along and left them behind to take care of the real world as we set sail aboard the 22 meter research vessel the Undersea Explored which was to be our floating home for the next week.

Undersea wasn’t built for speed and it’s design as reef research boat with a very shallow draft means that she rolls a bit even in the lightest of swell, which caused a few concerned looks from some of the guests, but bitching about swell and wind on a kite surfing holiday wouldn’t go down to well. So after a few quite beers on the deck watching the sun set over the Daintree and the anticipation that when we woke tomorrow morning we’d be in kiter paradise the gentle rocking was soon forgotten. 

Monday

After gracefully falling out of my bunk in the staff quarters, I wondered out onto the deck to discover us steaming north past Cape Flattery. There was a certain buzz on deck about the wind, or lack of it, the standard 30 plus knot winds of Lizard Island seemed closer to the standard costal 15 knots we get back in Port Douglas, unlike the sea breezes south of the tropics, once you get this far north the trade winds kick in and it blows non-stop day and night, well that’s the theory. In any case I was glad I’d decided to pack the old 13m bandit in next my kit of shinny new 10 and 12 meter JNs.  

Knowing that we were only an hour or so away from the famous blue lagoon I headed below to double check my camera gear, then up to the wheelhouse for a quick crew meeting about the plan for the day. Bretto and Kingy (Luke King) were concerned about the lack of wind while our skipper looked quite pleased with the outlook of easy anchoring and a good day’s sleep.

Once everyone was fed and the appropriate gear for the day gathered, we loaded up the tenders and started carting people into the blue lagoon. To keep people entertained while we waited for the wind to blow through, a couple of snorkel tours were planned, they don’t call it the Blue Lagoon for nothing and even under a slightly overcast sky the water looked incredibly inviting. With 20 plus meters of visibility and some amazing reef accessible straight off the beach, blokes who would normally turn their noses up at such a dull activity such as snorkelling were amazed at the diversity and colour just below the surface. Which was all fine until I thought I spied a fin out in the middle of the lagoon, 100 feet or so from where I was leading a snorkel tour, in a place known for it’s big tiger sharks I wasn’t going to hang around to investigate further, so we made our way back to the shore and called for the boat. Bretto went over to check out my ‘fin’ which turned out to be a log, I was then given shit about it for the rest of the day, seriously a log in 20 feet of water 20 miles from shore, give me a break.

The wind had picked up by the time we made it back to the beach, kites were being pumped up and lines ran out, it was on. I grabbed my camera and the long lens and headed up to capture some of the action; Ritchie and Ben were first out, with Ben throwing down techy hooked-in jumps and Ritchie gibing and sliding around on an ancient skim board. For most of the day people were just happy to be out on 12s just cruising on the clear water.

Lunch came and went, beers were drunk, we packed up and shuttled back to Undersea. More beers were consumed, and Lisa our cook for the week put on a massive spread for dinner, no-one was going to be losing weight on this trip.

As the day rolled to a corona fuelled close, one word was on everyone’s lips ‘Eagle’

Tuesday

The previous evening we had steamed around to the protection of Watson’s Bay. Thanks to the wonders of modern Telstra NextG coverage Bretto and Kingy checked up on Seabreeze and the BOM to check the forecast and the discission was made to head over to Eagle.

Eagle Island is a special place, not just to the lucky few kiters who have skipped across its glassy flat waters which surround it, but also to conservationists, and because of that some rules apply to what you can do and where you can go on the 2km long cay. Fortunately Undersea and Windswell have the permits to use the beach up to the high tide mark, while the birds remain safe in the light scrub above, though I’m not sure what the local bird population think of the massive bright kites swooping around above them.

To try and get our home as close as possible to the beach, Pete managed to thread Undersea though the surrounding reef so that it was only a short ride in the tender or kite from the duckboard to the beach.

As the boys ate breakfast, we setup up shop on the beach, marquee, esky’s, first aid, kites and boards all found their way to what would become our advanced base camp for the next 3 days.

The wind was still quite light at around 15kts so everyone just got familiar with the place carving up the glassy water and relaxing, sinking a few beers on our deserted island. Life’s tough up here. Bretto buzzed around giving people tips and free lessons while Kyle, James and myself taxied people back up the beach in the tenders after they failed to make ground and ended up off the back of the island. As we were kiting in a almost directly offshore wind people soon wised up that not going upwind meant you ended up in some very sharky looking deep water off the back of the reef, people pulled the pin and started walking back up the beach a little sooner after that.

Some solid riding went down throughout the afternoon, lots of big boosts and oldschool style for the cameras.

That night we left most the gear stashed on the beach and headed back to the boat to another huge meal, as the guests worked on lightening the boat of imported Mexican beer, the crew cleaned up and I had the tedious task of uploading and sorting through hundreds of images. I think a few cervezas helped pass the time each night.

Wednesday

Early wednesday morning the plot was formed to mix it up a little bit, some of the punters were keen to wet a line since we were out in a prime fishing area, the only problem being that Lizard and Eagle Island were in a protected “green zone” meaning no fishing.

Captain Pete weighed anchor and we steamed off to the nearest bit of reef where fishing was allowed, on the way we formed up a few groups, the ‘staying on undersea drinking while fishing’ team, the ‘taking a tender closer to the reef and fishing while drinking’ team, the ‘spear fishing’ team and the last with unsurprisingly the least members the ‘Snorkelling looking at fish’ team.

As I was a part of the hunting party, as well as camera guy, I filmed Kyle shoot a few Coral Trout until Paul who had joined us made it clear that he needed some help taking care of some horse sized crayfish he’d found up in the shallows, I swapped the video camera for a pointer tool and swam off after him. Between Paul and Myself we managed to score 8 crayfish in 30 minutes while Kyle and Bretto shot half a dozen trout and a big reef jack, not a bad mornings work. Lisa the cook was going to have a busy afternoon cleaning fish.

Back on Undersea the rest of the boys had caught a mixed bag and put a decent dent in the beer supply by the time the wind had shown up. While steaming back to Eagle Kingy and Flinno trolled a few lines trying to make the most of the fishing time until we were back in the ‘green zone’ again, but alas the mackies weren’t on that day.

Back on the beach the wind had picked up to a solid 25 knots, the smaller kites finally came out and everyone started to throw down their big moves. Darren and Paul got the whole upwind thing dial and as their confidence grew so did the itch to try and get off the water and fly like the other guys, this led Darren to almost become the first major causality when he ended up above his looping kite in 3 feet of water over a bed of coral. A few scratches, mild concussion and some possibly broken ribs was the best he could have hoped for, we didn’t expect to see his black Ozone darting around the sky anytime soon when James pointed out to me someone launching from the boat and tacking back up wind. Much respect to Darren.

Everyone was pretty knackered by mid afternoon which gave Kyle and myself the opportunity to get out and do some kiting, it’s amazing how all your plans for landing big tricks go out the window when you get the chance to just cruise for a couple of Ks in glassy flat water, speed runs up the beach and little shuv-its and flips on the wake skate left us with big goofy grins on our faces. By the time we got back to the beach the boys were pretty boozed and word had gotten out the Marlin bar, the only public bar on Lizard island, was going to be open that night, a chance to drink on try land out of the sand and meet some of the female resort staff prove to key element in the vote to up anchor and cruise back over to Watson’s bay for the night, While Lisa was whipping up a fish feast the lads watched the nightly show of big GTs and sharks off the back deck, everyone got kick out of seeing Chris, the ships engineer and Marine Biologist, have his underwater camera attacked by the schooling fish and sharks. After that everyone was a bit cautious when we started to load up the tenders to taxi folks over to the bar, you really get the sense of adventure when you have to do a radio check and confirm channels before leaving in a boat in for a night out.

Thursday

Hangovers couldn’t dampen the excitement on Thursday morning. It was all coming together, 30 knot winds, good tide time and a sunny sky meant today was the day for ‘Knobs hard.’ This secret spot in the middle of the ocean only reveals itself at the lowest tides and provides a 6 to 8 kilometre sandbar at the perfect wind angle for our south easterly trade winds. Due to its location it’s not possible to get the Undersea Explorer close enough to shuttle everyone over quickly.

A plan was formed for everyone to setup on another island and then kite over in smaller groups with a tender following to make sure everyone was safe. Once everyone was in the shallow water behind the sand bar I had a chance to try and capture some of the action in the crystal clear water, there’s northing quite like kiting photos where the shadows are on the sand ‘under’ the water.

Everyone had a ball, throwing 6 rooster tails and lazy floaty jumps. Kyle put in a solid session of technical grabs and landing everything else to blind, which inspired a few of the other boys to step up and try the same. Words really can’t express how sick this spot is and it really makes this whole trip worthwhile.

As the tide rose and water started lapping over the sandbar we slowly made our way back to the beach camp on Eagle Island, with stories of kiting over giant turtles, manta rays and sharks reported once everyone was safely back on the beach.

Sore heads from the night before and four big days of kiting started to catch up with guys, so a few esky’s of beers was brought over from the mother ship to help ease the pain. I took this as chance to get out on the water and have a  soul session as the sun dropped and everyone relaxed on the beach recalling stories of the days kiting.

Bretto and Kingy made the tough call to leave this island paradise after a bit of a vote amongst the passengers and crew, and the plot was formed to steam through the night back towards Port Douglas stopping off for a day at Hope Island for a change of scenery. With misty eyes the guys waved goodbye to their island home which had served them well over the past 3 days. 

Friday

Friday morning dawned with ominous grey clouds and the possible bad omen of a large shark hanging off the back of the boat as we dropped anchor in the lee of Hope Island. Everyone was a bit iffy about the spot as there were some deeper channels to cross between the flat water and an obvious wind shadow between the island and the boat. With some apprehension we loaded up the tenders for our final day of kiting.

By mid morning the clouds had cleared and the tide had dropped to reveal some surprisingly good flat water around the front of the island, the dedicated kiters dialled in the tricks that they had been working on earlier on the trip while the others cruised off in one of the tenders to watch the whales that were putting on a show just beyond the fringing reef.

I personally got in my best day kiting, with hardly anyone on the water to keep an eye on Kyle and I went to explore around the island throwing down in the deeper spots and dodging heads of coral up in the shallows.

A late lunch was served up after Chris had one of the best kitting debacles I’ve have ever seen, while throwing a jump and having the kite luff above him right in front of the ship, he proceeded to drift down the port side while his kite still attached went down starboard, Chris released leaving his bar and lines to first get caught around the anchor chain, then once freed to be snagged again on the transponder of the depth sounder, upon retrieving the kite and Chris from the water Kyle backed the tender over the line which had come unwrapped from the bar resulting in a great mess around the prop, thankfully the lines were ok.

This should of signalled a good time to pack up but everyone was trying to make the most out of the last day, Darren tried to sneak around the back of the island for an explore and when his kite fell out of the sky as he entered the wind shadow, Kingy then followed him minutes later with the same result, a third person proceeded to complete the trifecta but managed to swim back to the beach, which left us with the fun job of rescuing two people from deep water in the exact location we’d seen the shark earlier that day. Needless to say the guys were pretty stoked to get into the rubber ducky.

That afternoon Flino produced 20 kilos of cooked prawns from the prawn farm he manages and Lisa whipped up a thousand island sauce. Captain Pete, Kyle and I put our selves in charge of testing the prawns to make sure they were properly thawed, another tough job.

The lads smashed through the prawns and worked on finishing the last of the beer. Once the last kite was landed I gathered everyone together around for the classic group shot which signalled the end of the 2009 Windswell Lizard Island tour

Saturday

We had traveled through the night stopping at sometime before dawn at Low Isle for breakfast and a clean up before heading back to civilization.

Awards were handed out to Darren for best crash, Ben for best overall rider and to Potter for most improved. I handed out a CD with the best images of the trip to the guys before heading below to start cleaning up what turned out to be a ute load of empties and rubbish. Cleaning the boat took most of the morning after we docked but we soon caught up with the boys at the pub to swap numbers, with promises of places to stay and trips to go on if we ever headed down south we said out goodbye, I’m going to hold you to that beer and place to crash Nips.